If you have ever been extremely consistent with a bedtime/wake time routine, you will know that at some point, you do not need the morning alarm to wake you up. How did your body know that it was time to wake up?
Here I will compare the biomedical explanation of this phenomenon as well as the Chinese Medicine understanding.
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
First off, I am sure you have heard the term “Circadian Rhythm,” but what does it mean?
A Circadian Rhythm is the term used to describe the series of behaviors our bodies go through in a 24-hour cycle. Only one of these Circadian Rhythms is our sleep/wake cycle!
All the cells and organs in our bodies contain special ‘clock cells’ that perform specific actions at specific times throughout the day and night. How do they know what time it is? They listen to the body’s “master clock,” in the hypothalamus of the brain!
This master clock, or the suprachiasmatic nucleus, keeps the time for the rest of the body by reacting to light.
When sunlight first hits your eyes in the morning, your eyes send a signal to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) to let it know that the day has begun. The SCN then starts the countdown to night and every physiological process in the body aligns itself with the master clock.
When the day starts to turn into night, the decrease in light again alerts the SCN. When this happens, the SCN tells the brain to start producing melatonin so that you start to feel sleepy and ready for bed.
Here are three health benefits from knowing about Circadian Rhythms:
Go outside soon after waking up. This is so that your brain knows to wake up your body, and to start counting down for night. This will solidify your preferred sleep/wake schedule.
Stop looking at screens about 3 hours before you go to bed. Our eyes have not evolved to know the difference between sunlight and an electronic screen. When we stare at a screen “until we fall asleep” we are making it much harder for our bodies to know when it should prepare for sleep, making your quality of sleep worse!
Have your meals at the same time every day. Yes, your stomach has its own Circadian Rhythm too! By eating at the same time every day, your body will know when it can expect nutrients. This will help your body prepare to digest the food as well as know that it is not starving if you wait too long between meals. If you have any digestive problems, try putting your meals on a schedule and see what changes.
What is the Chinese Medicine understanding of waking up?
Everything comes back to the interplay of Yin and Yang. We can think of Yang as being fire, activity, movement and Yin as ice, rest, and reservation.
When we go to bed, our Yang/Active energy is rounding the corner and turning into Yin/Inactive energy.
When we wake up in the morning, our Yin is rounding the corner and turning into Yang. (Check out the visual)
This means that when we wake up, our Yang energy has been in the process of slowly activating our body until our eyes finally open and we start the day.
In many Daoist practices they teach to go outside in the early morning, breathe in the fresh morning air, and do our qigong practice. This is a practice of moving our Yang throughout our bodies with the rising Yang of the day.
We can also confuse the rhythm of our internal Yin/Yang system through changing time zones, drinking caffeine late in the day and staying up all night/sleeping all day.
Our bodies can return to a normal rhythm if we give it time and support. In broad terms, aligning our internal rising and falling of Yin and Yang with the outside world of day and night is the most healthful for our bodies.
Attempting to stay awake or sleep for days at a time can hurt our bodies. So, treat your body well and remember to get up with the sun and go to bed with the moon!
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